


A Swirling Shade of Grey

by Alchemistofpeace



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 09:57:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4475027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alchemistofpeace/pseuds/Alchemistofpeace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karen digs through her past and finds memories both sweet and not so sweet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Swirling Shade of Grey

Karen heaved the last box off of the shelf and set it on the concrete floor. It was larger and heavier then any of the other boxes, and she mentally thanked herself for deciding to go through the boxes at her mom's house and not her apartment. She never would have gotten this to the car. She would have fallen down the basement steps and broke her spine, if her arms didn't fall off first. She pried the tape off, taking several good hunks of cardboard with it and pried the box open. The first thing she saw was the faint glimmer of a trophy. She picked it up and smiled. She knew what it was without even looking at the engraving; the third place trophy her high school basketball team had won in the regional tournament. The school hadn't been eager to showcase it; they were too concerned with their first placing football team and marching band to consider a third place trophy for a GIRL'S basketball team.  
  
Her teammates hadn't been happy either. They'd never been particularly close, except for the small, scattered cliques within, and the less than stellar victory caused a rift among the team that not even pizza and frozen yogurt could fix. Looking back on it, Karen realized she was probably living in a Mean Girls' rip-off teen movie.  
  
She was the only one on the team who was actually proud of the trophy. Half the girls on the team wanted to pitch it out of the bus window as they drove away, but Karen insisted on keeping it. The trophy sat on her nightstand for three years, until she left for college.  
  
She was definitely keeping it.  
  
Karen put the old trophy in the keep box and continued to look through the rest of her academic memories. The top layer was composed of her high school essays and research papers, most of which she can tell are bullshit from here. Most of those she throws in the trash bag, but there's one or two that she's proud of even now. There's several folded projects on colorful construction paper stuffed in the edge between the papers and the sides of the box. One looks like it's from seventh grade and another looks like it came from sophomore year. She stuffed both of them in the trash bag behind her. She picked up a neon green piece of construction paper and prepared to throw it in the garbage with the others when she gets a good look at it. The words "WHAT I WANT TO BE WHEN I GROW UP" were emblazoned across the top in shaky, crooked sharpie. She smiled to herself. She wondered what she used to want to be. She knew at one point she wanted to be a traveling vet, so she could help all the animals everywhere. But honestly, who didn't want to be a vet when they were little? Unless she wanted to be a very poorly payed secretary when she was ten, her younger self would be disappointed no matter what she had wanted to be.  
  
She opened the folded paper all the way and read the tiny little paragraph there. Her heart sank with every sentence fragment. What started as ironic curiosity morphed into something more bitter and heavy in her chest. She felt wistful, almost guilty, even. She wanted to help people. That was basically it. She wanted to help people and always do the right thing. If this was a Tarentino movie, Karen would crumple the paper, stuff it in her pocket, and mutter something about the world being cruel and unfair before lighting a cigarette and drinking a shot of whiskey. Instead, she hugged the paper to her chest and fights the urge to cry like a little kid. She wanted to do the right thing. She really did. But she knew she did the wrong thing more often than she wanted to admit. She wished she was a kid again, when doing the right thing was as easy as tattling to the teacher and not stealing cookies from the cookie jar. Before her morals became this sickly, swirling shade of grey.


End file.
